Seeing Her Face
by RT4ever
Summary: A Brenda departure story.
1. Bathed in Sunlight

Vanessa's time on GH was a waste, well never a total waste because I had a reason to watch for a few months. They failed at her departure, a million of different things I would have been pleased with, but not what they gave me (okay it wasn't horrible, but I wanted MORE). Here's one of my thoughts..  
  
~~~Seeing Her Face~~~  
  
"Brenda" his voice calls to her, dragging her out of the trenches of her mind, where she was trapped by all of her failings.  
  
She turns to him and raises her chin up as she smiles, looking deep into his eyes. She appears to be an angel in that instant as her brown locks tumble back and her face is bathed in the sunlight. She is eighteen all over again, that young girl he'd been unable to stay away from is now a woman before him and she had grown into even more amazing person than he had ever believed possible.  
  
She'd had known he was coming, but that didn't mean that she wasn't surprised to see him "Sonny" she shakes her head, I things were never over/I not even when he said they were.  
  
He slows his gait as he took his final steps to her, "I bet you're wondering why I'm here."  
  
"I don't care why, the point is you are."  
  
He wishes more than anything in that moment that he could get on the plane with her, that they could run away from here. He couldn't though, he couldn't do that to Carly and Michael, he couldn't expose them to that danger and he couldn't be the one to kill Brenda when he'd spent so much of his life trying to keep her safe. "You left behind some things."  
  
She wonders for a moment if he is going to say 'your heart,' but then out of his pocket emerged priceless memories she'd once flung away. "My jewelry" tears glisten in her eyes as she saw the bracelet and the two rings resting in Sonny's palm.  
  
"I didn't want you to go without them. You can keep them with you now Brenda, you can keep your memories hidden or displayed for the world to see. It's up to you."  
  
She picks up the tennis bracelet and lets it catch the suns rays "No more hiding pictures in jewelry boxes." She looks up from the bracelet and back at Sonny, "I never needed those pictures though, I didn't need to see your face to remember. I don't need this, I won't ever forget those years, I won't ever forget how we taught each other to love. If it wasn't for you I would have crashed and burned years ago."  
  
He smiles at her "I wouldn't have lived a year past the day you met me. You saved my life over and over again."  
  
"We were good for each other despite what everyone else thought."  
  
He nods in agreements, "We were the best."  
  
"Everything has to end though."  
  
"I could get on that plane with you, Baby. I just meant to come out here and give you those things, make my peace with your leaving. I don't know if I can though. I'm not ready for you to be gone again. I can't face that, I can't live with it on a daily basis that you aren't by my side."  
  
He moves forward and cups her face with his hands and brushes away her tears. She let the tears flow escape and she chokes out a sob "That's the first time in over five years that you've called me anything but my name."  
  
"Oh god baby, I'm sorry. I had to keep you safe though. I couldn't let anyone hurt you, if I kept you alive, it meant you had the chance of being happy again. I didn't know how I would survive losing you."  
  
She looks back up, into the reflection of her own tear soaked eyes "You did though. You survived."  
  
"Carly had to pull me through more than a few times."  
  
Her hand raises up to his cheek "She's good for you. She keeps your life interesting, just enough drama so you don't kill her."  
  
His smile is so pure it reaches down into her bones "Drama was one thing I was certainly used to."  
  
"You loved every moment of it."  
  
He smiles once more "You'd get so riled up, we both would, we were too passionate."  
  
"There's no such thing." she shakes her head and looking into his eyes she tells him "Go back to your wife Sonny."  
  
"I don't want you to be gone."  
  
"I won't be" She lifts her hand to his chest "I'm in there, always. Just like you're always with me."  
  
He leans forward and kisses her forehead, he clasps the hand that contained her jewelry with hers and whispers "You better go now."  
  
She pulls back taking her things with her "You're going to be okay Sonny, you're going to be happy and you will always have my love, don't forget that."  
  
"I love you" he calls out after her and she smiles as she boards the plane. As her back retreated into the plane and disappeared from his sight, he fought the urge to chase after her. Instead he whispered one last time "I love you." 


	2. Wake me up

Chapter 2  
  
He came to slowly, waking up was a long and arduous journey as he passed though layers of consciousness. She was the only one on his mind, his sweet and loving Brenda, he had set her free, he knew she would be happy now; they both could be happy now. That slowly started to slip away though as he fought to realize where he was, what was going on "Brenda" he whispered.  
  
"Sonny?"  
  
He heard Jason's voice and turned to him "What happened? Is Brenda okay? The plane?" He fought to figure out what was going on.  
  
"Sonny?"  
  
He heard the hesitancy in his friend's voice "Is she okay?"  
  
"Sonny, Brenda's dead." seeing the horror on his friend's face Jason continued wondering though if he was only going to make matters worse "Brenda's been dead for four years Sonny."  
  
"No, no Alcazar."  
  
"We got Alcazar Sonny, well the cops did. For setting the bomb, they have proof he's behind it. Kristina's alright Sonny, you saved her, she's got a few broken ribs, a broken arm and a concussion, but they're releasing her from the hospital today."  
  
Sonny could do nothing but stare at Jason in horror, Ihe had been going to meet Kristina, then someone came running in telling them to get out. He had grabbed her../INo...no that wasn't right. Kristina had died, but Brenda had come back. Brenda came back to him in the rain, she was standing there in the rain and she was real, she was alive, she had been alive, she had stayed away to keep him safe, she didn't want to hurt him. She loved him, she was alive..."No"  
  
"What's the last thing you remember Sonny?"  
  
"I was putting her on a plane Jason, I told her how much i loved her, she told me she'd always be with me. She's alive, this is a bad dream. You were there, you took her away after she saw Roy shooting me, she told you everything, she told you how she realized that I loved her when she saw my eyes, and that it was okay that I didn't love her as much as she loved me, but she was wrong and she realized that, I know she realized that as we said goodbye....No...Oh god no..." The realization that he knew that and he wasn't there when that happened between Sonny and Brenda and no one told him, just like Alexis and Ned, oh god and Carly."No, no, she's alive, she can't be dead. She's alive Jason, she's out there."  
  
"Sonny she's gone."  
  
"No no Alcazar had her."  
  
"Alcazar was after you because you were responsible for his brother's death. You realized that about an hour before you went to meet Kristina, his brother was Ric Lansing. Remember the lawyer? It was right before Brenda died, just days, he got caught in the crossfire when .."  
  
"No..no" he whispered as the world thankfully went black again. 


	3. Shared Grief

Seeing Her Face **Chapter Three**

Shared Grief

"Jax?" Sonny questioned as he opened his eyes to see his enemy

"Jason asked me to come talk to you." Sonny wondered where was the anger in his voice, _why was it missing?_

"Brenda's alive Jax, you were right all along. I know it, she's alive. You have to go find her, Jason thinks I'm insane, but she's not gone. I know it now. She isn't gone."

"No, Sonny she is. Brenda's dead, you knew that when I went looking for her. As much as you wished she was alive, you knew she was dead. She's gone and she isn't coming back. A dream can't change that."

Sonny couldn't allow these words to be said, he couldn't give up on her, that wasn't a dream, _that couldn't have been a dream.._"No, she isn't. Alcazar had her and he was making her think that she had her mother's disease.."

Jax cut him off "She did Sonny."

Sonny stared blankly at him

"When I thought I saw her, I got in contact with the people that had run the test and I found out she had it. I thought it would explain why she was running, if she didn't know better or she was trying to protect me, she didn't want me to have to take care of her if she had it."

"So that's why she isn't here, you have to find her."

Jax closed his eyes, trying to block out the memories of Brenda that bombarded him every time he heard her name. He hated Sonny more than anyone else in this world, but he was the only person that truly shared his pain. "She's gone Sonny, as much as I don't want it to be true, she's gone. She's dead Sonny, she's never coming back to you or to me."

Sonny stared straight at the one person in the world who had come as close to loving her as he had, even though it was still light years away. "You can leave now Jax."

Thanks for reading! 


	4. Lost and Found

Ch.4  
  
"Hey, I heard you were awake finally." Alexis said peeking her face in through the door.  
  
"Yea."  
  
"How are you feeling?" she said as she approached his bedside worried by the lack of emotion in his voice, forgetting that just a day ago she had hated him.  
  
"I'm alive."  
  
"That's not what I asked Sonny."  
  
"I'm fine Alexis. Leave it alone."  
  
"Fine, fine. I just wanted to come and thank you for saving Kristina, she said you pushed her out of the way of some falling debris."  
  
"No thanks necessary, he was after me, not her." He turned to look at Alexis and saw her touch her stomach.  
  
She pulled her hand away as she saw him notice "I guess I should be going."  
  
"She, he, it, whatever is mine, isn't she?"  
  
"What?" Sonny watched Alexis get nervous and flustered, she was having difficulties lying to him after he'd saved her baby sister.  
  
"You did the right thing." He watched her eyes widen "She'll be better off without me. I have too many enemies, you can keep her safe though."  
  
"How'd you?"  
  
"You'd never sleep with Ned, you'd never hurt Kristina that way. Ned's a good guy though, you were perfect together as much as I hate the bastard. He'd be a good father," she watched his eyes change as he continued to speak, "Brenda was so angry at Lois for taking Brooke away from him." he shook his head trying to ward off more memories of her, he turned his focus back on Alexis, "Stay in Port Charles though? Let me watch her grow up for as many years as I have?"  
  
She took a seat next to him, once more unafraid of him and the power he could use to control her, she saw him once more as a friend "She loved you Sonny"  
  
He turned his head away once more  
  
"It was always so clear that she loved you, even when she was trying to hide it. You could see it in her eyes, even when she wanted to kill you, you could see it was because she loved you so deeply. I barely even knew her and I could see it."  
  
"Why are you doing this?" his eyes stared deep into hers, they were cold and blank, they had forced all emotion out, so he could survive.  
  
She shook her head, "That's not the right question, why are you punishing yourself?"  
  
His eyes showed his weakness, his façade of indifference fading "I could have kept her alive"  
  
"That's not up to you. You aren't God Sonny, as much as you want to be, you aren't." She laughed a little, he didn't.  
  
He turned to her and asked as a child would ask their mother "How was everything that I remember not real?"  
  
"Who said it wasn't real? What happened when you were in that coma?"  
  
"Kristina died, I wasn't with her." he began and watched her flinch "I set it up so it would look like Roy had killed me, then she showed up. She was alive and standing in the rain in front of St. Timothy's where I'd left her. She'd stayed away to keep everyone safe.. .happy, she didn't want anyone to have to deal with her illness. We fought like normal, I was insanely jealous over Jax and he attention she gave to him, I hated her for letting me believe she was dead. She married Jason to keep Jax from leaving Skye. Then he left her at the altar after seeing us kiss on the docks.  
  
She was leaving town, I followed her out to the airport. I gave her back the jewelry she'd given back to Jason after I'd left her. I told her she didn't have to hide her memories anymore.  
  
Then I couldn't let her go, I knew I needed to, but I didn't want to. I love her so much, I can't stand for her to be gone. I told her I survived losing her because of Carly, she told me she was good for me and told me to go back to her. She just wanted me to be happy, to have everything I'd ever wanted for her."  
  
Sonny looked back up through his tears to see Alexis crying "How could you doubt that was real Sonny?" she asked "You died Sonny, you were gone for over three minutes, they were going to call it. Then suddenly your heart started to beat again. She didn't want you to die, she wanted everything in this world for you. You'll have eternity with her Sonny, but she wants you to live first."  
  
"I don't know how to live without her? Four years it's felt like I've been walking around without a limb, no not a limb, my heart, she was my heart. I've just been going through the motions of living."  
  
"Love her Sonny, let her love you even though her body isn't here anymore. It's the only way you'll ever be whole. She proved to you that she never left you, even though you thought she did."  
  
Sonny just nodded and let the tears fall a little more. 


	5. A Glimpse Into the Future

Epilogue 6 years in the future  
  
"Michael!" the chubby little girl with the mess of curls that obscured her face screamed when her cousin ran faster than her little legs could carry her.  
  
He laughed as he fell to their grandfather's side petting Annabelle. She wasn't too active, but she loved to be stroked for hours and the kids had no problem complying.  
  
"Michael" his grandfather lightly scolded "You know she can't keep up with you. Come here my sweet"  
  
She climbed up into her grandpa's lap "He left me" she said with a scowl  
  
Her grandpa laughed and hugged her tight, tears glistened in his eyes as he pressed his lips into her mess of curls. Loving his granddaughter as much as she did and then loving her even more because she was exactly like her namesake "Michael didn't mean to Brenda."  
  
"Mikey" Reginald called as he appeared in the doorway "Your dad's here to get you."  
  
"I don't wanna go yet" Michael whined as Sonny appeared in the doorway.  
  
"Why don't you sit down and have a glass of iced tea that Reginald just brought us and let the kids finish playing?" Edward said being uncharacteristically nice.  
  
"Thanks Edward" he said moving into the room, ignoring the iced tea and instead scrunching down to the floor when Brenda had joined Michael, he too began to pet Annabelle.  
  
Edward watched Sonny interact with the children and wondered for the millionth time if he should reveal that he'd known for years that Brenda wasn't Ned's biological child, but that he didn't care. He'd fallen in love with her and not her DNA the moment he'd seen her. But he refrained. Life was fine how it was with Alexis and Ned married and new parents of his great grandson Matthew. Michael came to visit at least twice a week since AJ had moved to Philadelphia over four years ago. His life was almost perfect...If only Lila were still around to see he and Sonny getting along for the sake of these two perfect little children. Tears glistened as dropped an arm to pet Annabelle, never taking his eyes off of Brenda as she hugged Michael forgiving him for leaving her. 


End file.
